Self-Respect Starts With Self-Care

When we stepped past the garbage-lined curb, through the twin burglar-barred doors and into the stinky, cramped elevator up to the artist’s loft that was the site of this month’s cover shoot, art director Amy McMurry and I looked at one another with knowing eyes.

This is perfect, we thought as we walked into the big room. The loft had cool features—a giant, built-in tent for meditation, great views of New York and near proximity to Chinatown—making it an ideal place to illustrate the story of spiritual author and businesswoman Gabby Bernstein, who is herself a blend of city chic and Eastern philosophical influences. Even more interesting, the shabbiness of the building and the block would provide the perfect test of Bernstein’s new ethos to free herself from judgment.

If she didn’t judge us for bringing her to this strange place, she would clearly pass. To be honest, we weren’t sure.

But when she showed up, you would’ve thought she was born and raised there. She didn’t utter a word of doubt or make the slightest face. She was personable and excited, and what followed is maybe my favorite photo shoot we’ve ever done at SUCCESS, because it truly captures who Gabby is, a person so comfortable in her own skin that she practically radiates light into the Manhattan evening sky. The self-love she practices, in turn, allows her to make others feel more comfortable and be their best.

The Respect Issue shows how caring for yourself will make you more attentive to others, creating upward spirals of performance and happiness all around you.

That’s what this month’s magazine is all about. The Respect Issue shows how caring for yourself will make you more attentive to others, creating upward spirals of performance and happiness all around you. We’ve packed this edition full of stories exemplifying the idea that exercising self-worth translates to care for others, which itself translates to great leadership and powerful inspiration.

It’s the perfect issue to debut a new, semi-regular column that we’ve dubbed “My Story,” allowing high-level influencers and friends of SUCCESS the chance to share how their core principles pushed them forward and the ways you can implement these values and lessons in your own personal story. Jordan Harbinger, the host of the major-hit podcast The Art of Charm, kicks us off this month.

Also this month you’ll meet our Achievers of the Year. These six people come from vastly different fields, but they all have in common a devotion to helping others, which created major breakthroughs in 2017.

The issue has a little bit of everything, including a smart guide to navigating the YouEconomy, an introduction to a man on a mission to heal our wounded veterans and a look at the ways our careful (or not) use of language can shape ideas and relationships.

For many of our readers, the most intriguing story will be the heavily researched piece detailing the very real benefits to subjective well-being that come from paying respect to a higher power, i.e., praying. This story, of course, doesn’t advocate any particular faith, but we do suggest you read it. I’ll give you the conclusion here: If you do pray, keep it up; and if you don’t, maybe it’s time to invest in one of those meditation tents.

We had a great time creating this issue. That is, after all, one of the first laws of self-respect—do what you love. So we know that the benefits to the people we care about, you, our readers, will be deeply felt, too.